Navy

The military’s service secretaries are the latest officials who are giving back some of their pay voluntarily as a result of budget cuts under sequestration.

The secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force are all donating the amount of their salaries in 2013 equal to the number of days that civilian Pentagon employees are furloughed.

The Pentagon currently expects to furlough civilian workers up to 14 days in the 2013 fiscal year.

Now that Congress has given the Pentagon a full-year appropriations bill for 2013, a group of House lawmakers wants assurances that the Navy won’t cancel ship maintenance for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Ten House members sent a letter Wednesday to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert asking the Navy to move ahead with its previously scheduled ship maintenance.

The Navy has warned it could cancel or defer ship maintenance in order to grapple with budget cuts.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) filed two amendments to a $984 billion government funding bill on Thursday that would gut the military's alternative fuels program.

The amendments already are drawing criticism the program's supporters, which are largely Democrats. Sen. Mark Udall's office said Thursday that the Colorado Democrat would fight whatever measure comes to the floor.

One would strip $114 million from the Army, Navy and Air Force's alternative energy research and development programs. The other would remove $60 million from the Defense Department's biofuels program.

Three sailors were killed after a Navy plane crashed in Washington state Monday morning, the Navy said.

The Navy said the E/A-6B Prowler stationed at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., crashed in an unpopulated area in eastern Washington.

Navy officials told congressional sources that the aircraft that crashed was taking part in a low-level navigation training mission when it went down about 50 miles southwest of Spokane, Wash. There were no other fatalities.

The head of the Navy’s Pacific fleet called climate change the most significant threat to long-term security in that region.

Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III made the comments Friday in an interview with The Boston Globe.

He said that turmoil from climate change “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’

President Obama will deliver a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy's graduation in May.

Republicans say move could be avoided; Pentagon says decision was difficult but strategic.

Obama traveled to a Navy shipyard in Newport News, Va., to argue allowing the cuts was “not smart.”

House and Senate defense lawmakers are crafting legislative language that will allow the Navy to conduct critical repair work to a number of its warships, despite looming, across-the-board cuts to the service's budgets under sequestration. 

The SEAL says he was told "you're out of the service, your coverage is over."